Rating: 
Summary: I Almost Saw It Coming But Who Cares When It Is This Good
Review: Val McDermid's A Place of Execution was the page-turner it promised to be from page one. It was also extremely well-written beyond any expectation one way or another. The reader goes back to the early 1960's in a small English county where a young teenaged girl goes missing and inexplicably is never found after an exhaustive search. If any of you were born in the late 1940's or early 1950's in the UK or Canada, you will immediately sense the time, if not the place, and the social climate of our early years.There is something about this story that rings so hauntingly true, I am still not at all certain that it is was not based on a true crime case. We start with the first reports of Alison Carter disappearing from the hamlet of Scardale, an English village that knocks any sense of cozy right out of the mystery fan reader's head. The folks of Scardale are tough, sober, stand-a spoon-in-it tea swillers, industrious, enterprising, and above all, heroic preservationists of the town's ancient way of life. It becomes truly laughable that most of the people of the surrounding towns think that Scardale folks are nothing but inbred, drooling dolts, destined for no better than a circus sideshow. It is no wonder that investigators George Bennett and Tommy Clough are so beset with exponential frustrations above and beyond any criminal case let alone a baffling missing person's case. These investigators are put through a meat grinder emotionally and professionally every working and private moment and on into the years after the case is formally closed. For these men, the case is never closed. They both have different issues and reasons for remaining so unsettled about the outcome of the case, but it has equally devasting consequences for the remainder of their adult lives. Back to the scene of the crime. Enter, the evil stepfather. McDermid's characterization of the loathesome Philip Hawkins is so finely wrought that he could serve as a textbook model of the advanced pederast. The Scardale folks are not pleased to have him as their new Squire and landlord. They loved the old Squire, Philip's deceased uncle, and do not trust this outsider with his matinee idol good looks and city-bred ways. That's what we think and that's what the police think. And that is the beauty of this tale. It is all a case of mistaken identity, six ways from Sunday, dear readers. Those inbred idiots of Scardale knew how to get justice and in a manner that can only be described and praised as Machiavellian. Read on. Val McDermid's genius is revealed, not in the surprise quality of the ending, the in the collective social justice that the ending reveals.
Rating:
Summary: Exceeded my expectations
Review: A unique story told with the charm of the British language.
I have become a fan of Val McDermid.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyed every minute of it!
Review: This is my first Val McDermid read and I wasn't disappointed. The story was well written and the twists and turns were unpredictable.
Rating:
Summary: Best Mystery I've Read in Years
Review: This is my first Val McDermid novel, and I am sorry her novels are not more available on Amazon.com. I would put her in the same general category as P.D. James and Elizabeth George as far as her style is concerned, this novel being more a detective novel than a murder mystery a la Agatha Christie. McDermid creates a mood in place and time that is absolutely captivating. I couldn't put the novel down, not because of strategically placed twists or suspense, but because her writing is so skillful. I read several mysteries a year, and I do not hesitate when I say "A Place of Execution" is the best I've read in a long, long time.
Rating: 
Summary: Am I the only one who figured this out?
Review: Now, I'm not tooting my own horn, nor do I think I was particularly clever...but the "shocking ending" was, to me, obvious by about halfway through the book. I found a previous reviewer's comments interesting - the reviewer stated that upon rereading the book, he/she was able to pick up on many little things previously missed...my problem was the "little things" seemed glaringly to point to the ending upon initial read! Maybe I've read too many similar books to be fooled, but it was a disappointment to me.
Rating: 
Summary: vividly told but predictable
Review: A good atmospheric read, with well-drawn characters. I was especially pleased that none of her characters were of the too-good-to-be-true-but-os-so-trendy type. The village of Scardale is vivdly portrayed. But you have to be pretty naive not to see the "twist" ending from page 2.
Rating:
Summary: This book will draw you in.
Review: This thoughtfully plotted murder mystery, set in a small village in a remote area of England, seems slow-moving at first. The characters are country and small town people who speak simply. There are no car chases, no gunfights, not even a corpse. But the gathering momentum of the story draws you in. The protagonist, a young police officer determined both to do his duty and to be morally right, successfully prosecutes the local squire for murder. But all is not as it seems. The well-meaning detective has been led astray. Near the end of the book, he is presented with the shocking but morally defensible truth. Stick with this book; it will reward you.
Michael Michaud, Vienna, Austria
Rating:
Summary: The Evil That Men Do....
Review: In this marvellous recasting of the traditional English village mystery, Val McDermid has succeeded in creating a story that cries out for comparison with the masterpieces of the mystery genre. Indeed, one finds traces of many of the great ones embedded in the plot, reworked and refashioned in original ways to serve the narrative - Nicholas Blake's "The Beast Must Die," Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express," David Stout's "Carolina Skeletons" and Josephine Tey's "The Franchise Affair" are a few that come to mind. The tale of two policemen obsessed with the brutal murder of a 13-year-old girl and the journalist who revisits the crime 35 years later has everything for even the most demanding of mystery fans - ingenious plotting, expertly drawn atmosphere and absorbing characters. And behind it all is a truly chilling depiction of revenge, and the long-armed evil to which it is a response...a reminder that the evil that men do really does live after them.
Rating:
Summary: Upon rereading - still the best book I have read in ages!
Review: On C-SPAN, I recently saw an interview with Shelby Foote, the wonderful writer and Civil War expert. He said that he thought rereading books was very helpful in really understanding the story. He said that when first reading a book there was, of course, much emphasis on finding out exactly where the story was going. But when a book was reread, the reader could concentrate on the smaller things and nuances of the writer. When rereading, the reader knows the "big picture" and pays more attention to details. After hearing that, I happen to come upon my copy of A Place of Execution and decided to reread it. I had initially read it last year and thought it was one of the best books I had ever come across. I thought reading it again would hopefully confirm my feelings about the book. And, according to Mr. Foote, I would find smaller things in the story that I had overlooked in my first reading. I have just finished my second reading. I can't remember when I have ever been so totally engossed in a story (especially the second time through!). There are so many distractions with daily life that intrude constantly - yet all of a sudden I would look at the clock and realize I had been reading uninterruped for hours. I find A Place of Execution a totally fascinating read. Val McDermid does a wonderful job of telling the story. The switching of time frames from the present to 35 years ago and then back to the present is done seamlessly. The actual story of the missing 13 year old girl is interesting on its own. After the outcome of the trial, I was so delighted to find that there was still 1/4 of the book left - meaning that there were some wonderful unexpected things left to be heard about the case. The last 1/4 of the book indeed does really make this book special. There are delicious twists that the story takes that are great. It puts it head and shoulders above most of the many mysteries that I have read. I have read other Val McDermid books and some of them were ok. But none even come close to this masterpiece.
Rating: 
Summary: A good read, but not a great story
Review: In A Place of Execution, we follow the story of Alison Carter, a pretty girl gone missing from her stark, secluded village. The story is told in several layers, the first part being a straight narrative of the search for, arrest of, and trial of the abductor, the second being a choppy series of first-person vignettes in only rough chronological order. McDermid is a talented writer who manages to hold all of these threads together (even a sappy re-created letter) but she is not talented enough to overcome the basic thinness of the story. A girl disappears, and she is not found. A story is built around her disappearance. A trial results from this story. Years later, new information comes to light about this story. That is the entire plot, decorated by well-meaning (or not) but not very complex characters, enough coincidences to fill a Victorian melodrama, and a shocking, surprise ending that I saw a mile away. Anyone familiar with Sherlock Holmes' favorite saying will have this mystery figured out by the time they are 2/3 of the way through. And the trial, which was basically a retread of the previous 200-page narrative shouted by annoying barristers, was a bore. I read it, because I felt it was my duty considering how highly regarded this book is. But I do not feel that all of these high accolades are deserved.
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